


The Bridge Keeper's Riddle

by pauraque



Category: The Venture Bros
Genre: F/M, Feelings Realization, Implied kink, M/M, Multi, Polyamory Negotiations, Post-Episode: s07e10 The Saphrax Protocol, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:54:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29407989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pauraque/pseuds/pauraque
Summary: Gary would have figured that publicly swearing blood allegiance to his best friend would be the most intense thing to happen that night, but honestly, considering the way this stuff usually plays out? It shouldn't surprise him that there's more.Yeah, no—not just the Dr. Venture thing.Waymore.
Relationships: Dr. Girlfriend/Henchman 21/The Monarch
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	The Bridge Keeper's Riddle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [raunchyandpaunchy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raunchyandpaunchy/gifts).



> Thanks to h. for beta-reading on short notice!

Gary strips off most of his Altheaeus suit, drops it in a heap on the floor, and lets himself fall back on the bed, arms outstretched, in nothing but his undershirt and pinstripe pants. He feels like a ton of bricks, like he might never have the energy to get up again. Behind the closed bathroom door, the shower starts running; he's not sure how long he lies there listening to the hiss of the water punctuated with aggressive splashes, but by the time he hears a car pull up outside, the dawn light is creeping across the ceiling above him.

The front door bangs open and he hears her heels thumping hurriedly up the stairs, matching the strain of worry in her voice:

"Sweetie, are you up here? I tried to text, but it just kept saying it was— Oh."

She stops in the bedroom doorway. Gary doesn't really move, but he can see her there out of the bottom edge of his vision, her weight awkwardly all on one leg. She's still in her bridge keeper costume. It strikes Gary that he's on her bed and maybe he should get off it, but he's not sure he can do that right now.

"He's fine, he's in the shower," he says, flopping his hand vaguely at the bathroom door. "He's been in there for a while, though. You might want to check on him, make sure he's not getting hypothermia or trying to drown himself or something."

He feels the mattress sink under his legs as she sits down on the edge of the bed with a blown-out sigh of relief. She pries her shoes off and they hit the carpet one after another.

"Thank God. You could have told me you were leaving instead of just running off like that."

" _He_ ran off," Gary corrects her. "I just went after him. We took the teleporter down and got a taxi home." (A long and silent ride, in far from the strangest outfit he'd ever hailed a taxi in at four o'clock in the morning—and with the Monarch crumpled down in his seat, his head resting heavily on Gary's shoulder as the passing streetlights slid over them again and again through the darkness.)

In his peripheral vision he sees her pinch the bridge of her nose. "Things are gonna be weird for a while," she says. "Weirder than usual."

He huffs out an involuntary laugh, not because it's really funny, but because he's so fucking far from having any clue what a baseline level of weird even looks like anymore.

She chuckles too. Maybe thinking the same thing. She twists around and smiles down at him. "I'm glad you were there. He's lucky to have you. Congratulations, by the way."

The way she says that... It makes a thing that's been floating around foggily in Gary's mind all night pull together into some kind of focus: The thought that what he did last night—dressing up in a suit and swearing blood allegiance to his best friend in front of a whole bunch of people—might be the closest he ever comes to getting married.

"Thanks," he says. And then, feeling a sudden, anxious urgency to change the subject, he asks, "Did you know? About him and Dr. Venture, I mean."

Seeing her hesitate, he waves a hand in surrender, letting her off the hook. "I know, I know, you probably can't tell me that, Council stuff..."

"Yes," she blurts out. "I mean, I didn't know that absolute _idiot_ was gonna yell it out in front of the entire Guild." She grimaces. "But... yeah. I knew."

Gary pauses, trying to get his head around that—both that she knew, and that she's telling _him_ she knew. After a minute, he says honestly: "I don't know what it's gonna do to him."

"It'll change him," she says, shrugging lightly. "Maybe on the other side of it he'll be someone else. Maybe we all will."

Gary thinks back on six months of watching the Monarch work through his daddy issues via unbelievably dangerous cosplay, and wonders how many more rounds of turning into someone else any of them can handle.

"That doesn't bother you?"

She rolls her eyes and breathes a laugh. "Well... put it this way. When you've already had your birth certificate reissued by the time you're twenty, it kind of changes the way you think about change."

She drops that in so casually, it seems to flit through the room like nothing more than a breeze. It confirms something he sort of thought he knew, but didn't _know_ -know. And now that he does, he's a little surprised at how much it really doesn't matter.

"Yeah," he says soberly. "I get that."

Her lips curve into a wry smile, and she puts her hand on his lower leg and rubs it through the scratchy wool fabric. "Whatever happens... just take care of him. He's gonna need it."

And that sets a kind of unprepared panic rising in his chest, like the first time someone shoved a dart rifle into his fifteen-year-old hands and told him to guard the perimeter around the Cocoon, like— _wait, come back, shouldn't an adult be doing this?_

"He'll never need me the way he needs you," he says, and once it's out of his mouth he's not sure if it sounds reassuring or disappointed.

She arches an uncertain eyebrow. Tentatively she asks, "Do... you want him to?"

Feeling like he's in over his head and sinking fast, Gary tries to say _no_ , but he can't, and then he tries to say _fuck, yes_ , but that won't come out either. He shakes his head, willing her to understand everything he doesn't even know how to say yet.

"I just mean I can't replace you," he finally manages. "I can't fill your shoes."

"It's not— We don't—" Her eyes search the newly installed bookshelf on the wall, like maybe by looking at all those words she can find the ones that make sense. "Look." She draws her bare feet up on the bed and in one smooth motion, she takes his hand and gently bends his arm so that she can lie down beside him, facing him. Her palm is soft against his, and the cotton of her bridge keeper's outfit is soft too, falling in loose folds around her body. It looks a lot more comfortable than slick black leather, and even though it's still a costume—he's rarely seen her wear anything that isn't—it makes her seem more... real, somehow. Unguarded.

"Look," she says again, quietly. "It's not a replacing thing. That's not what this is about. You're his number two, and I'm his wife, and that's not gonna change. I'm just saying... You've been with us for so long. You stuck by us when no one else did. And I know these big Guild rituals can be goofy and make you have these bizarre existential crises where you look around and there's these guys in hoods, and there's snakes, and pits of fire, and you're dressed up like Little Bo Peep and you wonder what you're even _doing_ with your life, but..." She draws a centering breath and closes her eyes for a second, then looks at him seriously. "I know tonight was for you and him. But if you weren't with us, _I'd_ feel like something was missing. And tonight... it— it made me realize that."

Her long, thin fingers intertwine with his. A lock of her hair comes loose and falls across her forehead as she peers at him searchingly, a small smile in her eyes.

Gary's head is spinning. He wanted this for so long, and now that it's happening... The early morning sun is glaring down on them through the window, and he hasn't slept, and this day has already been so long and so fucking confusing. He's wrung out and exhausted and he's not sure he can feel any more feelings right now, but his heart is really, really trying to.

"Uh," he says.

Her hand tenses in his.

"I mean, it's fine if you don't want that," she says, her gaze flicking down, away from him. "If you don't feel that way..."

"No, it's not that. I just..." He cautiously rolls over onto his side, facing her. "I don't know if I really know how." Facing this direction, he catches a glimpse of a heavy leather paddle resting nonchalantly on the bedside table. He swallows, his mind crowding with the number of things he doesn't know how to do.

"I don't know if I do either," she admits. "But I think there's more than one way."

It's not obvious who starts leaning in first, but soon they both are, and her eyes close, and their hands clasp together, and then they're kissing. It's their second kiss; they're not drunk this time. So much has happened since then, and Gary's stupid dork brain offers the helpful insight that it's like they're in another continuity—still themselves, but not living on the yellow-edged pages of the Golden Age anymore.

He shoves the thought aside and holds her hand tight, focusing on the softness of her mouth and the delicate tip of her tongue against his. It's the second time, but it might not be the last.

The shower finally clunks to a halt, sending groaning echoes all through the house's antique plumbing. They startle apart and both look to the bathroom door, which opens to reveal the Monarch, or the Blue Morpho, or Saphrax, or whoever the guy is who dresses up like those guys. Right now he's just damp and deflated and wrapped in his bathrobe.

His eyes rake hard over the scene in front of him, and for a second Gary feels like he should jump up, or explain himself, or maybe just book it the hell out of his boss's bedroom...

Without a word, the Monarch shuffles over to the foot of the bed and flops face-down onto it, right between his partner and his wife.

The two of them meet each other's eyes over the fluffy white of his robe; she bites her lip with a look that's half suppressed laughter, half pity, and all love. He gives a nervous little shrug.

"Aw, sweetie," she murmurs affectionately, rubbing her husband's back between his shoulderblades. "It's gonna be okay..."

Gary's heart is pounding in his chest as he lifts up his hand too. It's shaking a little, and then he places it down awkwardly on his partner's lower back, just above his rumpled terrycloth belt, and then it's still.

Gary's touched him before—grabbed him, shoved him, shaken him, pulled him out of harm's way—but this is different. Even through the fabric, he can feel the shape and warmth of his body under his palm.

"Yeah, it's..." He clears his throat. "Don't worry. We'll... We'll figure this out."

And the fact is, he has no fucking clue how they're going to do that—any of it. But as he lies here, and his partner's face is buried in a pillow and he's letting him touch him like this, and he can still taste his partner's wife's lipstick on his mouth as she gives him a reassuring nod of approval, and nobody's telling him to leave...

It hits him that it's been a really long time since not knowing how to do something actually stopped him from doing it.


End file.
